Kit Harington made some Tonight Show Jimmy Fallon writers very happy last week when he took on one of the odder sketches in the show’s 1,500 or so episodes. The Game of Thrones actor appeared as a guest and decided to make the most of his time on stage by belting out a two-decade old Train song that the show had tried to get guests to do for the last six years.
“Years ago we had an idea for a bit called Straight Up Goes For it,” Fallon explained, setting up the bizarre sequence. “It was a simple idea. We wanted someone to come out, and straight up sing “Drops of Jupiter” by the the band Train. That’s it.”
As Fallon detailed, though, they really struggled to get anyone to agree to do it.
“The sketch has been our white whale. We’ve been pitching it for years,” Fallon said with a laugh explaining that “dozens of people” have turned them down. “We finally have someone who has the guts to do it. He doesn’t play the piano, by the way.”
What follows is a very earnest attempt to sing the song, which didn’t go nearly as badly as the setup may have projected. Harington almost got most of the lyrics right to the abridged song, and his miming of piano playing was mostly accurate. We’re not gonna lie: it’s kind of a weird sketch, but not in a Tim Robbins way where the weird is that uncomfortable kind of hilarious.
But, hey, at least he made some writers very happy in the process.
